Backcountry is a well-acted film with a familiar premis
Foxcatcher chronicles the tragic partnership of multi-m
Hell hath no fury like a fairy whose wings have been
For a bit, Saving Mr. Banks offers a look at artistic integrity in battle with the Hollywood machine. Around 1961, P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), author of the beloved Mary Poppins, begins to see her income dwindle. The books have stopped selling, she has not written another installment, and the royalties have ceased. Here, she is faced with […]
A number of films that deal with isolation also deal with the fear of containment. Castaway pits Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) on an island. Pi is trapped on a boat with a hungry tiger. In Buried, Ryan Gosling must ward off claustrophobia and – inexplicably – fire in a coffin. Frozen relegates our skiers to their chairlift, […]
Of the nine Academy Award nominees for Best Picture this year, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was a shocking addition. At the same time, if there were ever an award for The Most Appropriately Titled Movie, this would certainly be it, for Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) is extremely loud and ever-so-close for far too much of the […]
I Love You, Phillip Morris, exemplifies Jim Carrey’s decade-long transition from comedic goofball to charming leading man. In a way, Carrey has been emulating Tom Hanks, who was best known as a comedic actor before melding comedy sincerity in 1988’s Big. From then on, most comedic roles undertaken by Hanks could better be described as dramedies: […]
Confusingly, The Change-Up fluctuates between a decently acted film that boarders on endearing, and the dumbest, trope and cliché-ridden film that I’ve seen in a while. Granted, I’ve avoided watching anything Happy Madison-related, but I can’t imagine that they would fall far below the bar set by this most recent film that tackles “the grass is always […]
What if Forrest Gump was a horror movie? It’s not quite Shining, but this fake trailer is pretty great. And apparently this was actually done by AMC itself, so that’s pretty cool. (h/t @renano)
